How to become a better criterium racer

It's summer here in Australia which means it's criterium season. From local club crits, through to bigger races likes the Bay Crits and even the national criterium championships, many riders are testing themselves on these short-course races at this time of year. So what are some of the things you can do to improve your crit racing skills? Helen Kelly from Kelly Cycle Coaching has some useful tips.

I vividly recall my first Bay Criterium Series. I warmed up well. I fumbled to clip in as the commentator, Phil Liggett, counted us down from 10 to 0. I was the last rider before we even got to the first corner.

I heard Phil say that the quality of the field is exceptional, as everyone was vying for Sydney Olympics selection. I was lapped in only six minutes and told to withdraw from the course. It was a humbling experience.

Bob Kelly, my husband and coach, then said:

“Next year when you do the Bay Crits you will finish every criterium, although you will be hanging on for dear life. The following year you will be sitting towards the front and will be able to follow wheels. The year after you will be creating the race – attacking, getting into breaks and will get on the podium.”

He was correct. On stage 4 in 2003 I finished second to a very young Belinda Goss. Phil Liggett later told me he thought I was going to win it.

So what did I learn from my first Bay Crits experience? Several things:

Cycling takes time. It doesn’t happen in 4-6 weeks — it’s a steady year-on-year progression of improvement. You must be patient. You can’t buy the “kilometres in the legs”.

Cornering and bunch riding skills are critical.

Holding position within the criterium is important to minimise energy loss.

It’s important to have a strong core to back up for five days of criterium racing without becoming inefficient.

You need to train the correct energy systems to be able to go with the repeated surges.

Get the base trained first

My introduction into Bay Criterium racing showed that I didn’t have the endurance base that the other riders had, nor the bike skills to race at that level. I describe the benefits of a big endurance base as being like “putting money in the bank”. You let your savings build up and then you draw on them when needed.

A good endurance block gives you the platform to work from when doing hard efforts and trying to hold on in a race. In watts or average speed terms, a good base can enable you to hold a 40km/h average or 280W average, whereas without enough base kilometres you may struggle to hold 35km/hr or 240W.

Each year you ride, you effectively add to your base or foundation. In my first year of full-time cycling I rode 25,000km. This continued over a 10-year timeframe. This cumulative base of 250,000km meant that I could sustain a higher power output/average speed after 10 years of racing than I could in my first season.

In simple terms, I had a bigger base to draw from. I had a bigger memory of kilometres in the legs to help me hold a higher power output, to attack faster, and to race smarter.

Cornering and bunch skills

Learning how to corner at speed is a vital thing to learn. By this I mean understanding how to lean the bike and knowing that you will keep it upright. In summary, you want to:

put pressure on the outside pedal with your leg straight

stay in the saddle

bend both arms and relax your shoulders

know how to ride through the apex of the corner with riders all around you

keep your cadence somewhere around 95-100RPM and anticipate gear changes so you don’t ride over-geared. This is vital for hotdog circuits — change before a tight corner so you can punch out of the corner without losing momentum

understand the entry speed needed into corners so you get through with minimal braking but without crashing out

always look ahead (never at the ground) and try to look through the corners to your exit point

understand how and where to put pressure through the handle bars to improve tyre contact with the ground.

These skills need to be practised over and over again so use local criteriums to practice until they became second nature. They say it takes 10,000 hours to perfect a skill so doing at least two criteriums every week is a great way to learn how to ride these sorts of races well.

Pressure on the handle bars

So what do you do with your hands? Firstly, make sure you are riding in the drops as this provides a lower centre of gravity and enables you to corner faster. This takes practice and requires a reasonable level of core strength and skill.

I was taught to put pressure through both drops but slightly more through the outside drop. The best way to explain this is to consider where the centre of gravity is when you drop a plumb bob from each of your drops.

When a bike is leaning to the left, and you position a plumb bob from the right drop, the plump bob falls almost directly down through the tyre. This is what you want – downforce through the tyre to help it grip the most.

Putting a plumb bob from the left drop shows the centre of gravity is out to the left of the rider, so if turning left and more weight was given to the left drop, it could cause the front wheel to wash out.

I slightly lower my inside shoulder and bend the inside arm a little more. It feels like I am almost hugging the leg that is bent up.

Bike fit and set up

I am making the assumption that as a crit rider you have a bike that fits you correctly. Cornering when you are too stretched out means you can’t bend your arms, or put pressure in the drops as needed. Conversely if your bike is too small, more weight is distributed over the front wheel which is dangerous.

In addition, if your seat is too high you can’t put pressure on the pedals properly. A poorly fitting bike can cause you to struggle to corner well, relative to your racing buddies, regardless of how often you practice.

Build your core

I have mentioned it before but core strength is the secret weapon which enhances what you are doing out on the road.

A good core improves your ability to transfer more power through the pedals. It helps you develop strength in your glutes and quads and provides the foundations to build your sprint to that next level. You only have to look at how rock solid Andre Greipel is on the bike to appreciate the core he has developed, not to mention his quads!

Check out this article on becoming a better climber for some tips on how to improve your core strength.

Training the energy systems

A criterium is not a steady release of energy. The pace surges, riders attack, there are intermediate sprints, there are gaps to close and so on. Training for these surges will make you a better crit rider.

A great drill is to do a series of short hard sprints, followed by limited recovery. For example, you could do four or five sets of 10-15 second efforts, seated or standing, with one minute of recovery between efforts. This simulates the repeated accelerations needed to be a dominant criterium rider. These could be done on the road or on an ergo.

Remember, criterium racing is learnt by practising it so I encourage you to race local criteriums and have a go. Try to evaluate each criterium you do. Ask yourself:

did I waste energy by following too many moves?

did I sit out in the wind rather than hide in the bunch?

did I brake harder than everyone else so I had to accelerate harder and more often to get back to a wheel?

did I warm up enough?

did I position myself in the top 10-15 riders to minimise that “elastic band” effect that happens through tight circuits?

Doing a self-assessment like this after each crit will give you a sense of how well you did and what you could improve next time around.

I hope this article has given you a few ideas about how to become a better criterium rider.

About the author

Helen Kelly and her husband Bob run Kelly Cycle Coaching. Both are certified level 2 cycling coaches and Helen has raced professionally all over the world and represented Australia at the world championship level.

nice article. “doing at least two criteriums every week” this is about my limit before i start getting chronic headaches, from being yelled at by the wife.

Willie

I totally understand jules, I think most of us “normal” people have a house hold tolerance for how much cycling time we are allow to withdraw from the family Bank.
p.s
if anyone has a little secret about this they would like to share please do. As my summer base building for road season is becoming rather limited.Especially now the “Boss” is talking about number two coming along.

Sean

My secret is find a partner who has a 6 figure income and is happy for you to work a job with flexible arrangements while training 20hrs a week+ racing whenever something is on. Having no kids is also good for cycling and travel.

Sean

Upon reading the other suggestions, I now realise how soft I really are.

Bodin Pollard

There is no “little secret” here – the unfortunate fact is that time is finite and you need time with both your family and bikes (and probably work & sleep too!).

My method for dealing with this is what I call “earning tickets”. I’m the primary bread-winner for the house, which is time-consuming in itself, but earns me some “tickets” which mean I don’t have to contribute a lot with regards to housework, as my wife works far fewer hours than I do. So, together, we consider this pretty balanced, so long as I do a couple of weekly jobs that she hates. This only takes me a couple of hours, so everyone’s happy.

The other tickets I speak of are the family tickets – time with my wife and daughter. There isn’t some way of turning these in to an exact currency, but we all know when I’m not spending enough time focussed on my family, so at this point I make plans with my girls and stick to them, regardless of anything else. Also, what I usually do at this point is over-compensate, meaning I earn enough tickets to cash in later on bike-related fun. An example of this was a tropical holiday with the family in the middle of the year that lead to me spending a week MTB’ing in Rotorua with my best mate with the complete blessing of my family.

It’s all about give and take and most people know when they’re taking too much – even if they’re in denial! I chose to have a family, I wouldn’t change this for anything and any time I start whinging to myself that it’s all too hard to do everything I want to do, I quickly make sure I earn a few tickets by one means or another and I usually end up pretty happy.

Andy Logan

Yeah there are no secrets, my wife and I do exchanges, we have a 9 month old and so I make sure I give her some me time to rest from looking after our baby, I do all my training early in the morning as well, that helps.

Dont be afraid to cancel that long ride with your mates, 4 hours with friends is worth 8 hours with the wife I find and you get to use that time to your advantage later on. Also over the holiday period I made sure I did all the DIY work quickly on the house and that gave me ample time to train at the start of this year.

I think it helps that my wife has only ever known me to train and race, so she is fairly clear on that not changing.

There is no simple solution, as mentioned its give and take really.

melbin rider

I hook my little guy – he’s nearly 20 months now, but started when he was like 7 months old – up in a trailer. Great training, he’s not getting any lighter, and gives the missus the morning to herself which means I get a morning ride with mates the next day. Still get to do sprint repeats, and actually you only need to go out for 2 hours to be completely buggered!

a different ben

Legend. Always wanted to do this but never got around to buying the trailer etc. Plus, way too sleep-deprived for the first eighteen months!

echidna_sg

there is always the option of getting the wife and kids involved (somehow)… give and take – we all have to give some space for the other halves’ passion too…

I married well, the missus rides 10+ hours a week with her mates, I ride 15+ hours a week with mine and we all end up in the same places for coffee. win-win-win!

Steel

Good tips on cornering in the drops. I’m going to try that around the Kew boule on the way home tonight.

This article and the previous one on climbing were both excellent.

jules

but you’re on a straight-bar ;)

Ross

Thanks for the article, I am a American junior going into my second season and I appricate all of the tips that this website provides. Along with that, all of the content (reviews, tips, photos, etc) on the website is top notch!

Lach

Awesome article! There’s quite a few useful vids on youtube for crit tactics as well. I found them really useful :)

Scott

Finally some “tips” again – the reason so many of us started reading in the first place

Tommo

I have plenty of time on the bike – now – because I’ve retired from regular work, and the kids have (mostly) departed !! And the missus says “Why don’t you go for a ride” – she WANTS me out of the house. So you younger blokes – the secret is you’ll have to wait I’m afraid

900Aero

Its a minor bit of pedantry but on the graphic showing the line through a corner I think it should read Braking Point, not Breaking Point. Am assuming that this is (like motor racing) where the brakes are supposed to be applied, not where you reach the end of your psychological tether and have a public implosion…..Or maybe it is?

http://www.cyclingTipsBlog.com cyclingTips

Yes, it’s supposed to be ‘braking’. We couldn’t change the graphic which was spelled incorrectly. — Regards,
Wade Wallace